Buoyed by striking an offensive balance between its inside and outside game, Metea Valley showed Wednesday night against District 204 rival Waubonsie Valley just how potent and effective it can be offensively.
Turning away a game and a young Warriors squad, Metea Valley would need to utilize every single one of the eight three-pointers it collectively hit as a team and the 19 points it received inside from Mark Konkle to survive by securing a 64-63 road win over Waubonsie Valley.
A pair of Matt Helwig free throws with 8.6 seconds remaining proved to be the difference as the Mustangs escaped missing a pair of one-and-ones and a Jack Connolly three-pointer as time expired to get out of dodge with a one-point victory.
Konkle’s team-high 19 points to go along with corralling seven rebounds helped set the tone for Metea Valley (3-2, 1-0), which got seven of its first 10 points from its 6-foot-6 senior center.
“Coach (Bob Vozza) had a great game plan coming in knowing that they don’t have quite the size that we played in the past in the tournament (over at St. Charles East). We thought we had a good opportunity to give them some looks,” Konkle said. “The guards did a great job of feeding me and getting me in the right positions.
“Then I probably could have done a better job of passing it back out, making a little bit better decisions in the first half, especially, when they would start to double down. But I thought the guards just did a great job of getting me in the right positions to be successful.”
While Konkle was operating inside the paint, his teammates on the perimeter were busy making life tough on the Warriors’ defense by hitting six three-pointers in the first half that allowed the Mustangs to go into halftime up 39-30.
Senior guard Ron Edwards, who finished with 12 points, had three of his four triples in the second quarter as the Mustangs turned a one-point deficit at 16-15 after a Connolly bucket to open the second into as big as a 11-point lead towards the tail end of the first half.
Edwards’ fourth three-pointer, with 7:46 left in the game, gave the Mustangs their largest lead of the game at 17 points.
“I just tried to come in and make an impact. I haven’t been playing my best the past four games. So I just wanted to come in, attack the basket and make threes for my team,” Edwards said of his second-quarter surge.
Joining Konkle and Edwards in double figures for Metea Valley was junior Dei’Ron Delarosa, who hit a pair of triples of his own on his way to scoring 10 points, while Nick Dodson added nine.
“Good rhythm for him. It’s good to see him getting those, especially when we call sets for him,” Vozza said of Edwards. “He keeps it going.”
Waubonsie Valley (2-3, 0-1) responded by whittling that 17-point deficit all the way down to one point as it got a pair of triples from sophomore Brian Phillips and seven fourth-quarter points from Connolly, including that triple from the left corner as time expired.
Connolly, a junior, tallied a game-high 25 points for the Warriors, which included hitting four three-pointers.
“It was all in the penetration from my other guys. They kept beating their guys, so my guy had to help off of it,” he said. “They just kept finding me. I was hitting, so it was good that they kept finding me.”
The Warriors got 11 points each from Phillips and junior Chris Karkazis, who added eight rebounds out of his forward spot.
“I mean, we’re playing hard. I like how we’re playing: scrappy, getting on the floor, really pushing the ball (and) getting it up the floor,” Waubonsie Valley coach Chaz Taft said. “The one thing about this group is that they share the basketball with each other. I mean, obviously, you can see that out there is that not one guy (is shooting it). They’re always looking to make that extra pass. They’re always looking to extra pass, drive it, make another extra pass. So they’re doing a good job with that stuff.”
